The Navajo Nation and Energy Fuels Inc., the owner of the White Mesa Mill in Blanding, have reached an agreement for the future transport of uranium ore across the reservation into Utah.

Holder: Pinyon Plain, the uranium mine that produced the ore at the heart of this standoff, sits a few miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Bloomberg's Jacob Lorinc went to see it.

A Navajo Nation official said the agreement with the company, which began the transports over objections by the tribe and local governments last year, was in in the tribe's "best interest" instead of a legal battle.

The Navajo Nation has reached a settlement with a mining company that clears the way for transportation of uranium ore across the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. The agreement announced Wednesday settles a dispute over trucking ore from a mining operation just south of the Grand Canyon to a mill site in Utah.

Energy Fuels reached an agreement with the Navajo Nation to resume transport of uranium ore on the nation’s territory after a six-month standoff that halted production at the company’s Arizona mine. The Colorado-based miner will restart shipments along federal and state highways that cross the vast territory in northwestern Arizona in February,

Navajo Nation officials have agreed to allow shipments of uranium ore to again cross the reservation. It comes after tribal leaders threatened to turn back trucks hauling ore from a mine near the Grand Canyon last summer.

Colorado-based Energy Fuels will enhance some of its safety standards for shipping uranium from its mine near Grand Canyon National Park through the Navajo Nation, to its processing plant in southern Utah.